


something so magic about you

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Crush at First Sight, Developing Relationship, Explicit Language, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Magical Realism, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23185939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: He turns around to dosomething, maybe go back into the storage closet when-pop! With a flash of orange and a cloud of faintly citrus-smelling smoke (there’s some glitter in there too, it gets all over the bridge of Kenma’s nose) he’s gone. Gone. Just like that without a vague impression or scoop out of the air or even a nick on the wall to his name.——-In which Kenma drudges his day away at work, Kuroo can’t concentrate in class to save his life, and Hinata still doesn’t have a complete handle on his magic.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	something so magic about you

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: consensual mind reading/telepathy, surrealism/unreality 
> 
> Title is from from eden by hozier which is a song that… does not fit here but I couldn’t think of any other title 
> 
> Now for the fun stuff, I wrote kenhina once, an exact year ago and I just remembered that I Love them. Anyways I’ve never written magical realism before and it was a lot of fun? I would have loved to expand on this a bit, but I feel like it wouldn’t have felt like right or organic or whatever if I tried. I’m also still trying to figure out how to work my writing style around the heavier bits of dialogue- there’s a definite shift in quality and it sort of caves in on itself in the middle- but I’ll figure it out one of these days. I’m also really sorry for the awkward bits of worldbuilding but I kept getting really excited before remembering that this is intended to be a oneshot, and a short one at that, and I’d already made it a good 3000 words longer than intended. 
> 
> Anyways I hope you enjoy!!

There is something crashing around in the storage room- the big one, three ways down the way past the staffroom and filled to the brim with all sorts of unfortunate, vile little things- and Kenma is very emphatically not paying it any mind. He’s slow and woozy, seven-and-a-half hours into his shift and still a half hour from its end; his uniform has begun to curl around his body like a second skin, and the big grandfather clock in the corner is groaning while its pendulum swoops clean through its stomach. It twists its hands up through its face, doubles over on itself and groans through its shiny oak outside and marginally less shiny glass insides, and Kenma ignores that too. It’s not his problem- Kenma doesn’t deal in any sort of time, other than that which affects him directly, and he’s not willing to expend energy on something as trivial as the wormhole that has begun to expand in the corner. That sort of thing is above his pay grade.

It does manage to grow impressively large before collapsing in a swirl of colors- deep purple and neon green, red like the sky and blue like blood, pink melded to an angry yellow and whirling into the sludge of slow-moving shifts at its center- and Kenma lets a sigh of relief huff warm through his nose. The grandfather clock stands still again, ticking on every half-second, and judging him with its number-eyes and not-a-face face. The gold filigree framing its sides wrinkles with displeasure into divots of mustard-yellow and golden-yellow and mustard-gold; a spring shrieks free from the panel on its side and clacks over the floor, screaming indignance all the while. Kenma watches it with the same detached interest he gives the sounds still coming from the storage room.  _ Bang, bang, crash!  _ they go, like a cymbal and a drum, and Kenma keeps himself situated firmly behind the counter, eyes slipping shut and hair wound up behind his head. His visor slips slowly down his forehead, creeps until it’s angled down over his ear, low enough (and so annoying) that Kenma can almost be bothered to reach a hand up and flick it back into place.

Almost. He doesn’t. It nudges itself back up onto his head within the minute.

_ Bang, bang, crash! _

The strings of his work apron are tying and untying behind his back into a series of increasingly intricate knots; his hair has let itself back down and is now crawling over his shoulders, ruffling into two messy fishtail braids; the customer in the corner by the window has started up a frantic flurry of typing as their drink lays by the wayside, forgotten. The sunlight shines hot through the windows and sprawls all over the floor like it owns the place. Kenma hopes that he isn’t the one who will have to mop it up later. He always misjudges how heated it gets, always ends up melting the soles of his shoes to puddles, and  _ that  _ is not something he’s got the motivation to deal with right now- he’s still hazy from the late afternoon, blending into the soft shapes of the counter and other counter and the coffee machines lining the walls, surrendering himself to the whirring of their dying old fan and the slow undulation of the walls. He breathes in and they breath with him; he breathes out and they billow and bend and flutter, soft and sweet.

_ Bang, crash, crash, BANG!  _ goes the storage room. Kenma breathes in deeper, and the walls bow in time.

Today has been long too, drawn out until he nearly couldn’t stand it any longer, and there’s-  _ crash!-  _ something pushed up against the glass of the fish tank, something that wasn’t there before, with one big, bulbous eye (staring right at him)-  _ crash!-  _ and fleshy appendages colored sea-green that drift along lightly in the currents, and-  _ bang! _ \- the hem of his shirt has begun to tuck itself into the waistband of his pants and-  _ BANG!-  _ he's getting  _ frustrated.  _

_ Bang! _

_ You should go check that out,  _ the Kuroo-voice in his head says. Kenma grinds his teeth together, hard enough to hurt, lets his hair fluff in irritation and sends a good chunk of disapproval down the line alongside his message.

_ Aren’t you in class? _

_ I am. A boring class. _

Figures. His shoelaces tug free and then tie themselves, over, under, around and through, bunny-ear style. He kicks idly at the plastic counter, picks at the peeling purple laminate. One of the lights overhead grows bored and decides to glow a deep dark red.

_ Then do some other work or something. Don’t bother me _ .

_ You need to be bothered. Otherwise you’d hear weird noises from the storage room and lose your job because you wouldn’t go see what was making them. _

Kenma shifts his weight from this foot to that and thinks (not for the first time) that having a telepath for a best friend is far too much of a hassle, and he ought to just fuck off and live in the woods for the rest of his short, miserable life.

_ You wouldn’t survive a day out in the woods. You wouldn’t be able to play your games. _

_ I’d find a way. _

_ What? You’d plug the console into a fucking tree? _

_ There’s portable consoles. Or I could get like a cottage or something. Live in a cabin.  _

_ You? Live in a cabin? You’d sooner- wait. _

Damn. Almost had him.

_ Go check, Kenma. _

Kenma’s already decided to be as obstinate about this as he can- there’s only twenty minutes left and then he’s  _ free,  _ he’s not doing  _ shit _ \- when the light, having tired of its thirty second jaunt as barroom red, decides that it really rather ought to try its hand at strobing. 

Well maybe going into the back for a bit couldn’t  _ hurt. _

Faster than he’s ever moved before, Kenma goes. The pulsing white lights nips at his heels as he shuffles off, head down, to go  _ check it out _ \- he feels it washing over his shoulders, coaxing a headache out from the space behind his eyes. Kenma groans and pulls the back of his hand across his forehead, scrubs circles into the hair at his temples and breathes in nice and slow. The sunlight was beginning to trickle through the seams of the wall, anyways, and he may as well grab a bag or a pot or something while he’s back here so that this trip won’t be a total waste of time. He’ll put something out beneath the biggest problem spots (by the aquarium, by the customer, by the grandfather clock when it starts to act up) so that way those on the next shift will have one fewer problem, and then from there he’ll have whittled the time left down on his shift to near none and he’ll be able to find the strength to stand behind a counter for ten minutes more.

But the storage room, it seems, does not want to be found. Kenma has to double back through the small green hallway, and then the small yellow hallway, and then the hallway that doesn’t much like being a hallway and instead spends half its time looking like the inside of a very particular, very poorly designed theme restaurant. Kuroo is growing antsy where he lingers in the back of Kenma’s mind; as his sneakers slap against the floor, Kuroo raps his fingers against the sides of his own chair, locked away tight in a lecture room somewhere far, far away and sending a sensation that feels like crumpled-up static along the edges of their bond and straight to Kenma’s own fingertips. Discontent on either end tastes like copper, a sharp sting in the back of the mouth, and the ache of it now is only amplified by Kenma’s surprise at the sudden fever-bright burst, at the flare of intense heat like he bit down on a star. He scowls, lets the tug of his face and the slow, elastic sprawl of skin take the boredom and twist it, sends it charging back to Kuroo with a vengeance.

_ You’re making me go check. You don’t get to be bored,  _ he hisses, right through the tiny spaces between his bones. He pushes aside a large palm frond only for it to snap right back and  _ wow,  _ he  _ hates  _ this fucking job and he  _ hates  _ that he had to get out of bed this morning and he  _ hates  _ these fucking hallway, not-hallway monstrosities. He’s trying to be  _ responsible,  _ dammit. They ought to respect that.

_ I'm making you go check  _ because  _ I’m bored,  _ Kuroo replies. Kenma wishes he were nearby so that he could tie his shoelaces together.

_ So you weren’t really worried about my job at all,  _ he says dryly, amongst Kuroo’s vague impressions of indignation.

_ Well that’s just not fair! I can do things for more than one reason. I’m complex like that. _

Kenma pushes as hard as he can, because that’s bullshit and he’s willing to  _ fight _ on it when he stops and blinks because he passed the big red door before the big storage closet about four steps back, and the  _ bang-bang-CRASH-bangs  _ are now louder than ever and three times as repulsive. Immediately a bolt of anxiety shivers up his spine, down to Kuroo who responds in kind (anxiety is less metallic, more earthy and rougher around the edges, and they  _ hate _ it) because the banging around is much more real, suddenly, and frightening at that. His shoulders lock tight, his whole body brimming with newfound trepidation; his jeans cuff themselves. The hem of his shirt smooths back down, and the apron decides that it’s had enough of this once and for all and settles over his shoulders, snug around his waist tied with a simple square knot.  _ CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!  _ sounds off, three quick shots in succession, and Kenma should have stayed up front, sunlight and teleporting sea monsters and all.

_ If I get killed, you don’t get any of my stuff,  _ he tells Kuroo.

_ That’s… yeah, okay. _

And with that Kenma reaches out a hand and flicks the door open.

It swings inwards, slowly and with a drawn out creak; Kenma forgets, every now and then, that everything around him gets a mind of its own, and he’s reminded (every now and then) that they use that mind for nothing but dramatics. He ends up having to nudge the door open with his foot, stands so close that when the first wave of light spills over the floor he’s able to  _ see  _ the pair of legs attached (presumably) to a person for a split second right before said pair of legs and the ( _ definite _ ) person attached flies right into him.

_ “Glurgrh,” _ he wheezes as his stomach folds in and the weight and warmth of limbs falls over his shoulders before fluttering away. There’s the light press of fingertips to his back, the ruffle of hair over his cheek, and then a quick set of gasp-shout-squeaks as the guy who was apparently fucking around in the storage closet falls off of Kenma and back into the wall. He’s moving frantic still, fast enough that it’s hard to get a decent look at him but not so fast that it would suggest something supernatural; Kenma can see that his chest is heaving heavy with surprise, that he’s running his hands up-down, up-down along his arms, that he’s got the lightest smattering of freckles flecked over his skin, but other than that he can only see his hair and eyes; bright orange, dark brown, both loud and wild. Severe colors.

_ Oh shit _ , Kuroo hums, sounding much less surprised than he should. Storage Closet Guy stops for a moment to smooth the wrinkles from his shirt- neon yellow, emblazoned with some nonsensical phrase about climbing or soaring or something and paired with basketball shorts like he just can from the gym. But he didn’t. He just came out of the  _ fucking storage closet,  _ and now he’s smoothing the  _ wrinkles  _ out of his godawful workout clothes like they fucking  _ matter. _

_ What’s the protocol for this? _

_ There  _ is  _ no fucking protocol for this,  _ Kenma hisses back.  _ This doesn’t  _ happen.

_ Really? In a work environment like yours, I’d think that stuff like this happens all the time. _

_ Shut up, shut up, shut UP _

“Ohhh that was embarrassing,” Storage Closet Guy huffs. He straightens up, runs his fingers back through his hair and shoots Kenma a wide smile. It’s… not a terrible smile. When he’s not moving around or tackling people from storage closets, Storage Closet Guy…. doesn’t look terrible. His face is warm and round and his hair curls down around his ears and his eyes are big and wide, bugging out in surprise or excitement or something of the sort as the deep brown of the iris is near consumed by his pupils. His arms are lean but muscled. His sneakers are black, like the kneepads that are hiked up around his legs, scuffed around the edges and worn enough for the shoelaces to fray. He’s not terrible.

_ Oooooohh,  _ Kuroo crows.  _ Ohhhhh my god Kenma, the weird guy in the storage closet? Really? _

_ Fuck off. _

“Agh, I’m sorry for knocking into you! You surprised me. It was all dark in here and I didn’t know where I was and I couldn’t  _ see  _ anything because it was  _ dark,  _ and then you came in which is good because I never would have gotten out otherwise because it was  _ dark,  _ right?”

Oh, oh Storage Closet Guy is talking, and his voice is high and clear like the ring of a bell and he talks with his hands, slim fingers curling into and away from his palms as he gestures, and he leans forwards until he’s knocking right up against Kenma’s space, not too close but close enough for him to see some of the lighter freckles that travel along his forehead. Kenma blinks. One of his bracelets crawls up from his wrist and settles snugly over his bicep instead. He flicks it back down, struggles a bit with the clasp and the stubborn stick of it- this bracelet really does _not_ want to be on wrist- but gives up when it digs in hard enough to leave a mark. It’s all very embarrassing.

“I think that I may have made a bit of a mess. I’m sorry! I really didn’t mean to! I can help you clean it up! Here, let me just-“

He turns around to do  _ something,  _ maybe go back into the storage closet when _ \- pop!  _ With a flash of orange and a cloud of faintly citrus-smelling smoke (there’s some glitter in there too, it gets all over the bridge of Kenma’s nose) he’s gone. Gone. Just like that without a vague impression or scoop out of the air or even a nick on the wall to his name. Kenma feels his heart rocket up to his throat, feels it tickle at the roof of his mouth as he whips his head up in alarm and looks frantically from this door to that to see if he missed something between the then and now. He didn’t. There’s nothing there.

Well shit.

_ Did he just die?  _ Kuroo asks, justifiably (for once) alarmed.

Kenma hopes not. He was getting sort of curious. 

_ I feel like if he just died you should probably like, report it or something. You can’t just ignore it. _

_ Too much paperwork. They don’t pay me to do paperwork. _

_ Jesus, Kenma. _

He’s working up a witty reply- something to soothe the weird grumble growing in his chest- when Storage Closet Guy comes tumbling out from behind the big red door, looking shell-shocked and not half there. He looks back over his shoulder and shudders, head swaying back and forth as he tilts over to one side and has to jerk his arms to stay upright. The walls giggle at him. The fan chuckles through the steady spin of its blades, the floor tiles go watery and thin along their edges, and the big red door with its big brass handle stands as tall and innocuous as ever.

“Um?” he says. He rubs a hand over the side of his face. “That was… um? Can I ask where exactly I am?”

Kenma stares at him. “You don’t know where you are?”

The harrowed look of surprise morphs instantly into embarrassment, followed by a bashful laugh and the shuffling movement of his hand from his face to the back of his neck. He shifts from leg to leg, elbows pulled close to his sides and eyes darting all over.

“Nope! Not a clue!”

Kuroo cackles. Kenma blinks again. His fishtail braids undo themselves and decide that he really needs a fancy updo, and that they’re going to use the bobby pins in his pocket, the worn old hair tie around his left wrist, and what small inkling of willpower he had left to achieve it.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning,” he suggests, voice flat. His face contorts when his hair gives a particularly hard tug, but he turns his head obediently to the side and pretends not to notice as Storage Closet Guy watches the whole process with blatant fascination. He snaps out of it quickly, thankfully, focuses back in and claps his hands together sharply.

“Right! So I was in the gym practicing with Kageyama-“ Kenma doesn’t know who that is, Kuroo doesn’t know who that is, what on  _ earth- _ “and he finally agreed to teach me how to jump serve, right? Said I’d finally gotten okay enough at the underhand serve, but his face was all weird and grouchy when he said even  _ that _ , that litttllee tiny compliment, so I told him that the only underhanded thing around here was his  _ compliment  _ and then he got really mad, and-“

He prattles on like this for a good minute more. Kuroo snorts every now and then, but Kenma will freely admit that he stopped listening about three  _ Kageyama’s  _ ago and now he’s even more confused than before. Serves? Overhand, underhand, gyms and practice? Kageyama? If Kenma were to hazard a guess he’d say that he’s talking about volleyball, but Kenma doesn’t much like to hazard and that still doesn’t explain why he’s talking about volleyball after spawning from absolutely nothing in the back rooms of a coffee shop. Nice as his voice is, much as he’d like to listen to him stumble through his stories for a while longer, Kenma thinks he’d like answers some more.

So answers he’ll get.

“Stop,” he says. Storage Closet Guy stops short, chopping one of his words right off in the middle and letting its unfinished ends hang frayed between them. He looks at Kenma, and all of that attention focused so strongly on him is overwhelming enough to draw heat down like wool over his eyes. He ducks his head- faster than he would usually, it’s heavier on top now from all the  _ hair  _ piled there- and waits for it to subside some so that he can continue on with his dignity intact. It takes a good thirty seconds, and Storage Closet Guy doesn’t say a word-  _ Kuroo,  _ though, is still laughing up a storm, the hitches and snorts of his usual cackle muted by the distance between them. Kenma hates him.

_ I hate you. _

Kuroo laughs.

“Start with your name,” Kenma orders, because Kuroo isn’t going to be any help, Storage Closet Guy is much too long of a nickname, and his shift ends in fifteen minutes and the minute that those fifteen minutes are up, he will be leaving regardless of whether this is cleared up or not. Thankfully it seems that Storage Closet Guy was waiting for the go-ahead and jumps right back into action, rubbing his hands together and rocking through the balls of his feet as he speaks.

“Hinata! Hinata Shouyou.” There, there. One thing out of the way.

“And you came from?”

“Practice! For volleyball!”

Being right doesn’t give Kenma any sort of satisfaction. However-

_ Don’t lie. _

Being right gives Kenma all sorts of _hard-earned_ satisfaction that he absolutely deserves due to his quick thinking and deduction skills. However the answers that Shouyou ( _First names? How forward,_ Kuroo croons. He’s ignored.) gave are not really the answers that Kenma needs to formulate a plan, and the clock is ticking so he’s going to put them aside and move things along as quickly as he can.

“So if you were in practice, how’d you end up here?” 

“My magic! It lets me teleport!” Shouyou answers immediately. He poofs into smoke again, dissolves from head to toe and then reappears a few steps to the side, good as new with his arms spread wide and all the airs of a magician showing off a new trick. “Like that! I have a pretty good hold on it now, better than I did when I was younger anyways, but sometimes I get all  _ blah  _ or  _ grrr  _ and it sort of sets off without me telling it to. And Kageyama made me  _ really  _ annoyed, so it went  _ blam!  _ and I guess I ended up here. And um…” he trails off, face scrunching. “Before you never really told me where here actually  _ is  _ so would you mind maybe…” he makes a few complicated gestures with his hands, strands of smoke still clinging to his palms. He wipes them off on the sides of his shorts, leaving a streak of bright orange running over the loose black fabric. Between that and the glitter, he looks like he just stumbled half-drunk from a bad Halloween party.

_ You should say that. _

_ You should be quiet. _

_ Mean! I've got some good insight! I know exactly how to get this guy to like you!  _

_ I’m kind of in the middle of something, Kuro. _

_ Yeah but you can multitask. Listen to me  _ and  _ get a date, or more like get a date  _ because  _ you listen to me. _

_ Well if- _

“Um?” Shouyou says. Has he gotten closer? Kenma’s skin is prickling with proximity. He’s  _ definitely  _ gotten closer. “Are you alright? I asked a question and you just looked at the wall and then your eyes went all weird and glassy. Do you need water or something?”

“Sorry,” Kenma says on instinct. Then, because Kuroo seems dead-set on seeing this through and as much as Kenma would like to pretend otherwise it really  _ would  _ be difficult to carry on two conversations at once, he reaches up to tap the side of his head. “My friend’s a telepath. He’s being annoying. Anyways, you said you wanted to know where you are?”

Shouyou’s eyes bug bright and bold from his head. “Your friend’s a  _ telepath?  _ That’s so cool! Tell him I say hi!”

_ Hi,  _ Kuroo hums. Kenma sighs. Eight more minutes, eight more minutes and then he can  _ fuck off _ . He’s busting out the good ice cream tonight. He deserves it. “He says hi back. So I work here, it’s a-“

“Wait, is he like seeing me through your eyes? Or is he inside of your head? How does that work?”

_ Little bit of both,  _ Kuroo says.  _ Say it’s like I’m getting an impression of him from your thoughts. _

_ I’m not encouraging this. _

But Shouyou looks genuinely interested, and Kenma’s chest is doing all sorts of funny things, so he decides quick that it’ll be much easier on him if he just gives in. 

“He says it’s like he’s getting an impression of you from my thoughts,” Kenma tells him, as fast as he can and painfully aware that he  _ is,  _ in fact, encouraging this. “Now as I was sayin-“

“That’s so  _ cool.  _ Tell him that he’s cool!”

No.

“No.”

“Awww,” Shouyou pouts, looking disgustingly cute. Kenma hates this. He wants to melt into the floor like a big puddle of sunlight. “But if he’s getting an impression of me through you, does that mean he already knows that I think he’s cool?”

_ I do.  _

“‘No. And what I was  _ trying _ to tell you is that this is a coffee shop. I work here.”

Shouyou blinks like this is a complete turn in the conversation, which it  _ isn’t  _ because Kenma’s been trying to tell him where they are for a good long time now. Normally ignorance like that would make him extremely annoyed but Shouyou’s not terrible so he’ll make an exception. Just this once.

“A coffee shop?” Shouyou settles on once the apparent shock has dissolved and Kuroo has been passed over for newer, more pressing matters, like finding out where the fuck he is. “Does it have a name?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Kenma shrugs. He doesn’t have a good answer, but that’s not his problem. If Shouyou would like to unravel the mystery of why a fairly well-established coffee shop in an active part of the city has no name then well, that’s on him and Kenma will have no part in it. 

“Okay, so a nameless coffee shop, then,” Shouyou hums. He tilts his head to the side, letting it fall flush with his shoulder. “But like, what city are we in?”

“Tokyo.”

“Fuck!” Shouyou says immediately, in the too fast, clumsily clear way of a person who does not say  _ fuck  _ all that often. His nose crinkles and those big, bug-eyes of his dart this way and that ( _ like goldfish,  _ Kuroo thinks, highly amused) and he looks for all the world like he thinks he’s done something very, very wrong, and it’s hopelessly endearing. Kuroo’s laughter floats through his head, hitched to the tail end of that thought, and Kenma pushes him to the side. From that reaction he can very comfortably assume that while they might be in Tokyo, Shouyou probably  _ shouldn’t  _ be, and now he’s got a whole host of other problems because that means that they have to get him  _ back  _ to somewhere instead of just down the street. Getting people back to places is much more difficult than just sending them on their way. Much more tiring.

“So you’re not from Tokyo then?” Kenma asks dryly. Shouyou shakes his head rapidly, curls bouncing from side to side.

“Nope! I’m from Miyagi, born and raised. I’ve never even  _ been  _ to Tokyo before.”

_ Miyagi. _

“Miyagi,” Kenma repeats. “Miyagi.” 

He reaches a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. It comes back covered in glitter. One of his bracelets bumps up against his cheek, pulling the soft ends of its threads across his skin in what he thinks is a comforting gesture. It’s bizarrely sweet, and against all odds Kenma feels himself relaxing; not entirely, because that’s not in his nature, but enough to think clearly at least. He’s the sort of person who needs a plan, but more than that he’s the sort of person who, in the absence of a plan, will piece one together himself. So he takes a deep breath, not from exasperation but instead to  _ ground _ , to focus on the feel of his feet on the ground and his head on his shoulders and the trail of thread tickling his jawline, and slowly he figures things out. One, two, three. Three, two, one.

Kuroo is quiet, for now. Kuroo lets him collect himself and formulate, sits content and curious as Kenma thinks.

“Miyagi. Alright. Alright. That’s far, but we can deal with this. Can you take the train? Can someone come pick you up? Can you just teleport back there?”

Shouyou, whose head has been drooping down to his chest, perks right back up. “I should be able to. I mean, I got here didn’t I?”

_ Why didn’t he do that earlier then?  _ Kuroo asks, and  _ damn  _ that’s actually a good question.

“Why didn’t you do that earlier then?” 

“Ahhhh,” Shouyou groans. The pout comes back in full force, spreading slow like honey over his face. “I was way too freaked out earlier to get anywhere on purpose. If I tried, I probably would have ended up somewhere  _ completely  _ wrong, like Mars or America or something.”

“Mars?” Kenma says without thinking, and then immediately curses that he can get curious too, because now he won’t be able to rest until he gets an explanation. “Was that a possibility?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Shouyou says, nodding vigorously. “It’s actually something that everyone was really worried about when I was younger, especially when I was a baby, because babies get upset easily right? But with me, if I got too hungry or happy or anything I could literally end up over the moon. We got really lucky that the furthest I ever ended up when I was  _ really  _ little was the convenience store down the street from my house. Gave the clerk a real big shock, from what my mom tells me.”

That is… a lot of information that he’s not sure how to respond to.

“...Ah. He settles on eventually. He winces. Kuroo winces. “That’s… cool.”

_Oh god. Well you did_ _ask_

“It is pretty cool, isn’t it?” Shouyou answers cheerily. “Kinda terrifying if you think about all the possibilities, but I haven’t really before and I’m not gonna start now.”

Kenma can respect that.

“So do you want to just… go back then? To Miyagi? Since you can?”

“Already?”

Kenma wrinkles his nose. “What do you mean already? It’s not like you have anything to do here.”

“I mean-“ Shouyou looks to the floor, face flushing a deep red. Kenma worries for a moment that he’s going to poof into nothing. “I don’t even know your name!”

Kenma’s head jerks in surprise.

“My name? Aren’t I wearing a-“ and then he remembers that no, he’s not wearing a nametag, because it had tucked itself into his pocket about three hours into his shift. “Sorry. Nevermind. Why do you need my name anyways?”

“Well what am I supposed to call you? Storage Closet Guy? That’s what I’ve been calling you in my head, but it’s kind of clunky and you look like the kind of person who would have a really cool name anyways, so I’m curious. I can understand if you don’t want to tell me though. One of my teammates can figure out  _ everything  _ a person is feeling if he knows their full name, so everyone has to introduce themselves to him with their nickname, and I know that you’re really supposed to do that  _ every  _ time you introduce yourself to someone new just in case, but I always forget and well…” he trails off, shrugs. “What I’m saying is I just want something easier to call you, especially when I tell this story later. It doesn’t have to be your  _ name. _ ”

_ Oh my god,  _ Kuroo breathes (a very strange feeling through a mental bond, like bubbles if bubbles could kill you)  _ oh my god, you gave each other the same nickname. It’s meant to be. You’re on the same fucking wavelength Kenma, oh my god. _

Kenma agrees and then immediately regrets it because Kuroo’s in his head, and the second that you agree with Kuroo he becomes insufferable. Then, because he can  _ feel  _ Kuroo gearing up to prove that point and he’s only got five minutes left on his shift now, he just goes for it. If he could still give a shit by this point, he’d be the strongest person on earth. 

“My name’s Kozume Kenma, but just call me Kenma. It’s easier.”

“Kenma,” Shouyou repeats, drawing out the a. “Kenma! I like it! Hey, Kenma, Kenma! We should exchange numbers!”

_ It’s happening. I’m telling this story at your wedding. _

“Why?” Kenma asks, and then hates himself for it because he  _ does  _ rather want to exchange numbers, but god forbid that that happen  _ easily,  _ or  _ naturally,  _ or anything of the sort. Kenma’s been spending too long in this place- his thinking is going as twisted and convoluted as the hallways. How  _ exhausting _ .

“Well that way I can tell you if I manage to get back! And you seem really cool! Or at least you didn’t try to kill me for accidentally making a mess in your storage closet, but I’d say that really all a person needs to do to be cool is not try to kill me. So yeah! You seem cool!”

That’s embarrassing. Embarrassing, overwhelming, and just flattering enough that Kenma hands over his phone before he’s even fully aware of what he’s doing. His hair flutters as Shouyou taps at the screen, pulls itself into a simple ponytail as Kenma firmly doesn’t stare at the way Hinata’s tongue pokes from the side of his mouth as he squints at his phone. He seems to be thinking about something very carefully, and Kenma is thinking about  _ him  _ (very carefully; Kuroo’s still hitching a ride) so it’s a surprise when Shouyou starts to speak again.

“Hey, can I ask what’s going on with-“ he mimes the movement of Kenma’s hair, gathering his own curls into a tiny orange burst at the back of his head with his free hand. It is not a good look on him, and Kenma can’t stop  _ looking.  _ “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want! I’m just sort of curious. I mean, I thought that it was your magic but it doesn’t seem to be intentional or anything, and I just… wanted to know. It’s cool, you know?”

Kenma feels the dreaded flush from earlier returning. His apron strings decide that they hate him and come loose to wiggle errantly like they’re waving (holy  _ fuck _ ) at Shouyou, who giggles and returns in kind. It’s  _ cute.  _ He  _ hates  _ this.

“It  _ is _ me. Or my magic, I mean. It’s because of that,” he says, to put himself out of his misery. The big red door laughs at him. The floor tiles laugh at him. Kuroo laughs at him.

“Ahhh, that’s so cool! So you can like move stuff with your mind? Like telekinesis?”

Kenma considers. “A variant of that,” he settles on eventually. “I don’t really have control over it. It’s more like I enable things around me to move on their own if they want to.” 

Good enough.

“ _ Woah, _ ” Shouyou gasps. “Sorry Kenma’s friend, but that’s  _ way  _ cooler than telepathy.”

_ Tell him teleportation is kind of lame, actually. _

“He says that he agrees.”

“I bet,” Shouyou giggles. He hands the phone back; briefly their hands brush, and briefly Kenma has an out-of-body experience. Shouyou’s hands are warm and calloused and smaller than Kenma’s but steady nonetheless. They’re good hands. Nice, attractive, whatever. “You’ll have to tell me more about it later!”

Kenma blinks. His brain is short-circuiting.

_ Oh shit,  _ Kuroo murmurs.  _ Oh shit, he just  _ went  _ for it. Look at that he’s setting up an opening and everything, your guy knows what he’s  _ doing-

“Yeah,” Kenma says on autopilot. “Sure.”

“Great! I’ll be looking forward to it!” Shouyou gives him a great big smile, one that’s all teeth but no bite. He has dimples lined along his cheeks. Kenma’s shoelaces tie together- he’ll have to be careful walking after this or else he’ll end up falling head over heels, and he can’t exactly have  _ that.  _ It’s  _ undignified _ .

_ Since when have you cared about dignity? _

_ Shut UP _

“Yeah,” Kenma replies again. Admittedly weak, but he can only do so much.

Shouyou though seems satisfied enough with what little he offered. His smile goes even bigger as he gives one last wave and draws in a deep breath, deep enough to shift the words on his shirt to the side, and then shuts his eyes tight and disappears, leaving Kenma with nothing but glitter in his hair, a new name in his phone, and the faint, lingering scent of loss. In the sudden silence he looks down at the screen again to try and absorb the moment. HINATA SHOUYOU stares back up at him, written in stark black font (next to an orange, a ghost, and a shooting star, whatever that might mean). A small smile worms it’s way across his face as he thumbs back to the lock screen. He’ll text him later, once he’s had time to properly come up with something to say and has probably consulted Kuroo, much as he’ll deny it; that’ll give him some time to think, and he does love his time to think. By the time he actually contacts Shouyou again, hopefully it will be with a bit more confidence and a lot more to say.

For now though it’s a minute after his shift ended, and he has to get out of here  _ right now, immediately _ or else he  _ will  _ start screaming. He has better things to be doing- now and always- than fucking around at work. So he shoves his phone back into his pocket, hopes that it will actually  _ stay  _ there, and then turns around to face the biggest challenge of his life: getting back out of these  _ hallways. _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you made it this far!! I love hearing from you guys!!
> 
> Also Kuroo absolutely does tell this story at their wedding. Hinata loves it but Kenma refuses to talk to him for two days straight


End file.
